Bears, Cards battle to 3-3 soccer tie

The two teams playing for first place refused to lose, and Mount Airy and East Surry settled for a 3-3 overtime tie in soccer.

The Granite Bears and Cardinals each came into the night with a 2-0 mark in the Northwest Conference, while every other team has at least two losses.

The Cards scored the only goal of the first half, but the Bears tied the game at 2-2 in the second half. Both teams scored once in overtime.

“We were able to control the ball well in the first half,” said East assistant coach Andrew Jones. The Cards kept the ball away from their goal for the most part, and keeper Marco Gomez shut down any kicks.

East got a free kick from 40-45 yards out. Antonio Mata kicked a hard shot at the goal. Keeper Scott Kunkel dove for the ball and knocked it down, but the ball squirted under his arms and rolled across the line.

Bear Coach Will Hurley said he didn’t think his team did a good enough job beating East Surry to the 50/50 balls in that first half.

In the second half, the Cards got an unassisted goal from Brayan Gomez.

The first score for the Bear came off a free kick by Sam Watson. The tying goal came from Mitchell Brown on a corner kick. Mitchell hit a hard shot toward the goal, and it appeared to ricochet off a defender, Hurley said.

In overtime, East’s Ethan Atkins sent a cross to Brayan Gomez for a score, but the Bears answered with a goal from Cristian Cabrera to stay undefeated at 13-0-1.

The Cards played really well and stuck it out through adversity, said Jones. The team spent much of the overtime period playing with only 10 guys because Ethan Atkins was ejected on a double yellow card.

Against a good Mount Airy team, Jones said this was one of the best jobs the Cards have done this season in gaining and keeping possession of the ball.

East Surry was passing the ball up and over the midfielders so that they couldn’t stop the ball, said Hurley. That left co-captain Carlos Carrillo to chase down balls and send them back to teammates.

Hurley said Carrillo had 32 takeaways from the Cards.

“These were two great teams going at it,” said Hurley. “There was such good defense on both sides.”

Coach Bill Hart does a very good job getting his guys ready to play, especially against the Bears, Hurley said.

The Mount Airy coach said his team might have been able to pull out the win if not for an injury to its leading scorer.

Felipe Chavez has 27 scores, but was hurt against Bishop and sat out. Hurley said he would rest Chavez against Walkertown next so that he is ready to go against Atkins on Oct. 8.

East Surry will face Atkins on Tuesday. The Camels are 3-6, but Hurley said the team is much tougher than that record would indicate.